I watched my mom die this week

My just past 50yr old mother took her last breaths in a hospice bed with me by her side this past Tuesday. I’m writing this post for two reasons:

1) For my own sake as a kinda pseudo journaling effort to sort myself out.
2) To explain not just to myself but to others on what lead to the events of the worst day of my life.

So feel free to skip by this post, if you do stick around and read just be warned that there is no happy ending or silver lining here. This is a near complete tragedy that I am still trying to comes to terms with myself.

In short and simple terms my mother died of organ failure. The toxins in her blood from her failing kidneys and liver had built up to the point where no amount of curative care could save her. But this was not a sudden event. She had been in and out of the hospital for the better part of this past year, steadily getting worse and worse.

It started, for me at least, last July when I got a sudden call from my uncle explaining my mother was in the hospital and her prospects weren’t good. What had happened, as I was later told, was that my mother had vomited blood all over my grandparent’s family room. Converting a normal evening into a hellish nightmare in just a few seconds.

She was rushed to the hospital and I got the first plane across the country to get to her. No one slept that night.

Eventually she was stabilized and we then went through 2 weeks of a medically induced coma, several scares, covid restrictions, and constantly shifting locations. And we finally received a conclusive diagnosis. Her liver was near complete failure. My mother, the woman who brought me into this world, raised me, and taught me so much had apparently been heavily drinking for the last few decades. Not just right under my nose but my entire family. No one had known. Not a single person had even suspected.

My family I quickly got a crash course in Alcoholism, whether we wanted to or not. By the time my mother got out of the hospital she was a completely different person. In order to keep her alive doctors had to partially (mostly) bypass her blocked up liver, leading to high amounts of ammonia and other toxins in her blood. You know one of the most fucked up things about this point of liver failure is? Those toxins made her effectively constantly drunk, behaviorally at least. So not only did my mother suddenly become effectively an invalid, suddenly get outed as an alcoholic, and get signed up for the absolute hell that is the liver transplant process but it was as if her very biology was mocking the situation.

My grandparents took care of her as best they could. Somehow. My entire family, myself included, effectively uprooted themselves to take care of my mother for months. There were good times, but there were also bad times. I felt completely helpless when my own mother refused to take her medication or even at times slung insults at us and herself. Something she had never done once in my lifetime. We were dealing with someone who was an addict, severely depressed, in a near permanent altered mental state, and in a physical state of near constant pain. During those months it was the first I had ever seen my grandfather cry in my 30 years of life, and it was not the last.

Eventually her condition got to the points where she was taken off of the transplant list, last ditch efforts for reversal failed, and she was declared terminal. Every one of those moments was like a punch to the gut for every one of us. I had to learn a lot of things very fast: power of attorney, advanced medical directives, probates, executor of estate. I had to read and confirm her Last Will and Testament. All while she was still alive.

The day she passed my grandparents had stayed with her since the morning, I arrived in the evening. I talked with her. Or rather *at* her. And eventually I had to tell she could rest. It was like I reached into my own chest and ripped out my heart to say those words but I did. And not even ten minutes later her breathing slowed and her last few gasps were not far behind.

I’m glad, for her sake, that I was there when she went. She wasn’t alone and if anything it seemed as if she had waited for me that day. To hear me one last time.

But at the exact same time I am also deeply angry. My family all say it was a great thing that I was with her at the end, that I was the best person for that time. And I won’t disagree with that. But god damnit I watched my mother die. That moment, as poetic as it may seem, will haunt me for the rest of my life. I’m still coming to terms with that.

And yet all of that isn’t mutually exclusive with how much I loved my mother. Despite the hell my family and I went through due to her poor decisions she was still an amazing person before this. Her last moments may have taken a chunk out of my soul, but this was also the person who taught me to read, taught me to laugh, showed me that above all else compassion and understanding should be your first reflex.

I have cried more in the last year than I have in my entire life. And I know I will plenty more times during her services and burial. I know I will be ok eventually and I know my family I can get through this, and if you managed to read through all of this thank you. I just hope that my experience may be able to help someone else in some way.

Please remember to hug your loved ones the next chance you get.